A computer glitch at polling stations in Boulder County affected about 3,700 voters whose ballots will have to be reviewed by a team of bipartisan election judges today — but election officials says their backup plan worked well.

"We develop contingency plans for a reason," Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Hillary Hall said. "Ours worked as we designed it. It's unfortunate that we had to use it, but that's why we developed it. When systems don't go as planned, you have to have a backup plan, and it worked."

Hall said that about 7,600 people voted in person on Tuesday, and about 3,700 people were affected when a printer application malfunctioned.

From left, Yong Yi, Ruth Summers Yi, Darya Zahelina and Kevin Wright wait for the computers to come back on at the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder's Office in Boulder on Election Day. They were delayed about 40 minutes before being able to vote. See more photos at dailycamera.com. (Cliff Grassmick / Staff Photographer)

Boulder County elections spokeswoman Mircalla Wozniak said poll workers were able to print out ballots for the voters affected by the glitch, but the clerk's office was not able to assign voter credit to the Colorado State Secretary of State's Office database on Tuesday.

Hall said a bipartisan team of election judges will go through the ballots today to verify none of those voters already had mailed in or dropped off ballots, and once those ballots are confirmed as legitimate, they will be added to the total tallies.

Wozniak added that the election judges will not read those ballots.

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Lines began to form and delays mounted at polling stations Tuesday as the county went to its contingency plan. But those lines dissipated after the systems were restored at the three busiest polling stations — the clerk's office in Boulder, its hub in Longmont and a polling station at the University of Colorado.

"We stayed in contingency at the rest of our locations," Hall said. "There was a much lower volume. ... We wanted to maintain the systems we brought back up."

The Colorado Secretary of State's Office also reported two computer outages, one in the afternoon that lasted about a half an hour, and another at about 10:30 a.m. that kicked two thirds of election judges processing ballots and voters out of the system and took some nearly a half an hour to log back in.

Hall said that the problems with the state computer system did not impact Boulder County because it already had switched to its contingency plan.

County officials said that a "load balancing issue" caused problems at polling centers in Boulder, meaning computers could not connect to the state's voter database when printing ballots.

Poll workers printed ballots manually, and those ballots were expected to be verified on Tuesday night to make sure no one attempted to vote twice.

The Colorado Democratic Party unsuccessfully sought a court order to keep the polls open an additional two hours on Tuesday, arguing the computer problem at the state level caused substantial delays and would possibly disenfranchise voters.

The secretary of state's office opposed the measure, saying the outage didn't stop anyone from voting, and voting had been going on for three weeks already. The office said that anyone still in line at 7 p.m. was being allowed to vote.

People wait in line to vote inside at 515 Coffman St. in Longmont on Tuesday. Delays in checking voter registrations caused lines to form at polling places. (Matthew Jonas / Staff Photographer)

In Boulder County, shortly before 7 p.m., voters were still dropping off ballots at the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder's Office, but at the student center at CU, a few stragglers ran toward the doors of the polling station as students counted down.

Voters who waited until Election Day reported wait times of an hour at polling stations in the county. Among them was Denise Fittje, who said she had to wait an hour to cast her ballot at the St. Vrain Community Hub in Longmont.

"It's too bad, really, because I hope it doesn't discourage people from voting," Fittje said. "It might not be the prettiest election we've had, but we still have to vote. I mean it's just such an amazing right that we can't just give up."

Joe and Laura Hickey left the St. Vrain Community Hub Tuesday afternoon after visiting Fire Station No. 5, where they were told the server was down. They said it took them 45 minutes in all to vote: 40 minutes waiting and five minutes to vote.

They were on their way to pick up their daughter from school, but considered everyone else who might be told to wait. They watched a woman with a newborn baby leave.

"Think of all the people who have maybe half an hour to vote," Joe Hickey said. "Like, we've got to go run and pick up our daughter from school, but what about the guy that has to get to work? Then he gives up and doesn't go."

Hall said that she expects about 200,000 people to have voted in the election, so in the grand scheme of things, 3,700 voters affected is a relatively small number. But she stressed that every vote is important and everyone's right to vote is important.

"We are just real happy with the turnout," Hall said. "Boulder County got out and voted."

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